DangerousSausage

Ok, this goes a lot further than the standard vote of confidence from the board! It sounds almost evangelical, bordering on hubristic. I don't see anything wrong with sticking with possession football (that's what this squad was built for after all), but we do need more players capable of carrying it out. I hope the owners have considered why we haven't got the points they feel we deserve and take appropriate action in the summer. On the topic of luck, SM has certainly been unlucky at times, but in football you make your own luck. Thinking back to the Swindon game, we aren't going to get that lucky ricochet in the box of we don't put crosses in. We were braver earlier in the season and got the odd lucky break as a result. The thought of starting next season with the current management makes me nervous as I don't believe they're getting the best out of the players they have. But of course I want them to succeed and would like nothing more than to enjoy some tasty humble pie next season.

Saturday is the fiftieth(!) anniversary of Abba winning Eurovision with Waterloo. And with the PON prediction league, too, the winner takes it all*. So get your predictions in by 3pm on Saturday, and remember your joker! * not actually true. Sunderland v Bristol City Watford v Preston North End Burton Albion v Oxford United Charlton Athletic v Barnsley Bradford City v Gillingham Tranmere Rovers v Walsall Boreham Wood v Wealdstone York City v Eastleigh

Kaiserslautern are far from a great side @Robbie, they're third bottom of Bundesliga 2 and only one point clear of automatic relegation. They're the lowest-placed team Saarbrücken have played in the competition, and it could easily be a league fixture again next season. For Kaiserslautern, reaching the final is a worthy story too. However, it poses a problem. If they finish third from bottom, they'll play a two-legged promotion/relegation play-off against whoever comes third in the third division. The German Cup final takes place between these two legs. So they could quite possibly win the cup and then get relegated four days later!

The cup dream is over, they lost 2-0 tonight. Kaiserslautern parked the bus in the first half and scored their first attempt on goal, a header that went straight through the keeper's legs after about an hour of play. Saarbrücken's forward play seemed to consist of crosses and high diagonal balls straight onto the heads of the grateful guests. It's been an amazing story for Saarbrücken, but unfortunately they're not the ones going to Berlin. Instead it'll be a Kaiserslautern team who are in acute danger of relegation from Bundesliga 2.

Yes and no @Robbie. The licensing system is designed to stop clubs going bust mid-season and threatening the integrity of the competition. Yet in recent years we've still had a couple of clubs go into administration (which means automatic relegation) despite all the safeguards. In the lower divisions, clubs are just as unsustainable as they are in England. Very few clubs can break even on gate receipts and TV money of €800k in the third division, so they're dependent on a benefactor or a major sponsor to write off the losses. One example among many is Saarbrücken's main sponsor, the locally based Victor's hotel chain, which pumps more than €2 million into the club every season. In theory, club members have a controlling interest and could kick them out if they wanted. In practice, they know that would be the end of professional football in Saarbrücken if they did. On top of that, the German FA imposes silly and expensive ground requirements on third division clubs such as under-soil heating. Clubs are answerable to their members and hold annual general meetings and the like, so there is more transparency and fans' voices can be heard. But ultimately, he who pays the piper calls the tune. I think a licensing system was being considered in England, and the more club owners are held to account the better. But in both countries, if you want to compete at a professional level, you'd better have someone in the background who's paying for it.

All the teams you mention are still around @Robbie Dynamo Dresden never made much of an impact at the very top level, in the last few years they've been jumping between the second and third divisions and have just slipped out of the promotion places in the third division. They're a big club, averaging north of 25,000 at their matches, and take big followings away too. Think Sheffield Wednesday. Dresden is a big city that could easily support a top-flight club if they get their house in order. Dynamo Berlin (known here as BFC Dynamo) are also still around, but never had much in the way of support as they were the Stasi's favoured club in East Germany. This brought them league titles and European Cup runs back in the day, but now they're stuck in the regional fourth division and play to paltry crowds. Hertha are a different club based in the former West Germany; they played in the Champions League in the recent past but got relegated last season and aren't pulling up any trees this time. They play at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin - they rarely fill it, but are still the capital's best-supported club. I've been to Cologne's ground before, brilliant experience. Lukas Podolski played for them. They're in the Bundesliga but are struggling right now. This season they sacked their "animated" manager Steffen Baumgart, who then joined Hamburg, a former Bundesliga stalwart that got relegated a few seasons back and keep finding new and amusing ways to not get promoted. Here he is when forced to watch them at home when he was in quarantine. The finances of football are a bit different due to the rule that club members must have a majority of voting rights in their clubs (with a couple of exceptions), so instead of owners you've got investors and very big sponsors. In the lower leagues, clubs need to apply to the German FA for a licence every season - the FA look at the projected crowds and sponsorship income as well as the planned budget, and can accept it or demand improvements. If no licence is granted, the club is ejected from the league. In the third division, this has led to a situation where none of the teams that finished in the relegation zone were actually relegated - they all got a reprieve as other clubs were expelled instead!

Can't believe I forgot this in my other post. I'm watching this on TV tonight! Saarbrücken's story is amazing. The German cup is seeded, with the lower division team being guaranteed a home draw against a team from the Bundesliga or the second tier. This guarantees income, but makes it very hard to progress far. Saarbrücken have beaten Bayern Munich, Eintracht Frankfurt and Borussia Mönchengladbach to reach this stage. I only hope it goes ahead, as their pitch is a shambles. I've seen them in Mannheim several times as the two sides spent several years trying to get out of the fourth division. Always a good occasion and self-deprecating fans. Hope they smash the potato farmers from Kaiserslautern tonight.

I thought it was a storm in a teacup till I saw it. Yikes!

Shall we have a look at what's going on elsewhere? There's been a lot of coverage of the Bundesliga title race, but most of it has focussed on Harry Kane. Kane's transfer to Bayern has actually been a success, with him scoring over 30 goals in his debut season there. Unfortunately for him and Bayern, they're faced with a seemingly unstoppable title rival in the form of a Bayer Leverkusen side that is still unbeaten and, with seven games to go, already has more points than Bayern won in the whole of last season. Where Bayern often rely on the individual talent of the likes of Kane and Musiala, Xavi Alonso has turned Leverkusen into a well-drilled unit that is now just three wins from their first title. Elsewhere, Stuttgart have had a fantastic season under Sebastian Hoeness and may run Bayern close for second. One curiosity about this season is that Bundesliga 2 has recorded higher average gates than the Bundesliga on several weekends. This is due to the fact that the Bundesliga has several clubs that rarely fill their grounds (Wolfsburg, Hoffenheim, RB Leipzig) and others with a ground capacity of under 20,000 (Darmstadt, Heidenheim), while the second tier hosts a number of fallen giants that draw crowds of around 50,000 (Hertha, Schalke, Hamburg). With Kiel pushing for promotion and Cologne flirting with the drop, this trend may continue into next season. There's been plenty of anger and shouting off the pitch as well - the plans of the DFL (German Football League), the body that runs the Bundesliga, to get an investor on board to sell the league's international TV rights in return for a cut of the income sparked widespread protests, with matches being stopped due to tennis balls or remote-controlled cars on the pitch. And most recently there was a bout of confected outrage over the national team's kit, with angry insecure men all over the internet feeling threatened by the colour pink. At least things are looking up for the national team - thanks in part to Julian Nagelsmann's revolutionary tactic of picking players who are in form for their clubs, Germany have scored a couple of impressive wins against France and the Netherlands and are suddenly looking in promising shape.

The results: Plymouth Argyle 0-1 Bristol City Stoke City 1-1 Huddersfield Town Bristol Rovers 0-0 Shrewsbury Town Charlton Athletic 0-0 Stevenage Newport County 0-4 Crawley Town Sutton United 3-1 Swindon Town Altrincham 1-0 Oldham Athletic Eastleigh 2-3 Maidenhead United --- For the second time in four rounds, our winner is @Megan_Elizax! Congrats! @Megan_Elizax - 7 @DangerousSausage - 6 @super_ram - 5 @cheeky~k8, @Robbie - 4 @ARLukomski, @Fan of Big Tone, @liampie, @magpiejue, @william1984 - 3 @4everapie, @Dan, @DonnyNotts, @gtownjohnno, @nottsnutter - 2 @Harry Buckley - 1 --- With four rounds to go, it's pretty much as you were at the top, while @super_ram rises to fourth... ARLukomski - 198 gtownjohnno - 194 william1984 - 186 super_ram - 180 cheeky~k8 - 179 Fan of Big Tone - 179 magpiejue - 175 4everapie - 174 DangerousSausage - 170 Dan - 162 Megan_Elizax - 156 DonnyNotts - 136 nottsnutter - 131 liampie - 126 Chris - 123 upthepies - 90 Joshua - 86 Robbie - 73 allardyces tash - 70 TheSkipper - 67 KingWilliams - 66 Harry Buckley - 60 CliftonMagpie - 55 thommo - 49 OoooooTommy - 45 NottsCountyKev - 41 JIMBO - 40 jimbob - 38 Nocturnal-Magpie - 38 AmericanPie - 36 KB1862 - 22 George L - 6 Canadian - 4 --- We're back to Saturday afternoons now, so next weekend's fixtures will be posted tomorrow. Thanks for playing, see you all then!

Unfortunately I just can't see it working. Nine points in 14 games (compared to 42 points in 26 games under LW) speaks a very clear language. I don't necessarily think he should be sacked right now (what's the point?), but unless there's a stunning turnaround I don't think he should be allowed to lead us into next season. I don't really think he's cost us a promotion push, after the Mansfield game at home it was very clear that we were pretenders and would only be serious promotion candidates if we made some prudent additions in January (which we didn't). All the same, the speed at which we have gone downhill is alarming, and Maynard's poor tactics and selections have played a big role in that. Another thing to consider is that we've got a very important summer ahead of us. A significant part of the squad is not up to League football and we need to bring in the right people to replace them. The head coach might not sign the players himself, but he's a big selling argument for players who are considering offers from Notts and other clubs. Players want to join a club that is upwardly mobile and play for a good head coach. They rated Luke Williams highly and wanted to play for him. Will Stuart Maynard inspire the same faith among prospective players? If we get it wrong this summer, we risk circling the drain to the NL again and undoing the last four years of progress.

Nice surprise to see a good performance, and when viewed in isolation a point against a team that's flying and well in the running for automatic promotion is a more than decent result. Now I'm going to wade into the above discussion. Luke Williams was not solely to blame for our poor defensive record - our summer recruitment erred too much on the side of giving our promotion winners a chance in L2. By the time the January transfer window opened, it was very obvious that this had been a mistake, but LW had already left by then. Despite that obvious issue, the vast majority of the points we've picked up this season were under LW (42 in 26 games), and those points are the reason why we aren't in for a very uncomfortable April. As things stand, I don't see how we can justify the huge risk of keeping SM on for next season. Points-wise we have been the worst team in L2 since he was appointed, and it's not all down to bad luck. In particular his "strategy" of dropping back when we take the lead has cost us lots of points recently. All that said, I still want us to win and punch the air when we score. I'd like nothing more than for Stuart Maynard to prove his doubters wrong and I'll never understand the mentality of people who want to see us struggle.

Any wage cap would be measured against turnover rather than an absolute figure. The wage cap in Leagues One and Two used to specify that a club can spend 65% of its turnover on wages, and last season Wrexham seemed to be in line with that. It's obvious that a club getting crowds of 10,000 with a load of merchandising revenue on top is going to have more money to burn than one that is barely managing four-figure crowds. The idea of an absolute top limit on spending is interesting, but probably not feasible - a club that goes straight down from the PL to L1 will automatically be spending much more than other L1 clubs simply because of the PL-era players it still has under contract.

The press conference is usually the day before the match, but yesterday was Easter Sunday. There's also no fancy matchday pic on Facebook today. There would have been no point sacking anyone in the middle of the Easter weekend. If we lose again today, I wouldn't be surprised if something happened during the week though.

Good post @ARLukomski and I largely agree. John Bostock - I can't help wonder whether he's got a niggling injury and is playing through the pain barrier. If so, and if there's a chance of getting him firing on all cylinders again next season, I'd consider keeping him on. Luther - Loan him out to a NL club for the first half of next seaon. If he does well, he's ready. Geraldo - Maybe give him another year. I can see him being released though as he wasn't an automatic starter in the NL either, but before the season I felt that L2 might suit him. Sadly we never found out. Also unlikely to be one of our bigger earners. Kyle Cameron - I agree that at this level he's a squad player at best. However, he was a left back when he joined us and he might be able to do a job there for us too. Having a full back with a bit of height isn't a bad thing in this division. GK - They're in contract, but I'd be looking to move on Slocombe or Stone, or maybe both. Stone clearly isn't trusted and may be keen on a move. We need experience and leadership at the back, and a good way to get that would be to bring in an experienced goalkeeper who has played at a higher level and can organise our defence. But we need to make room first. Personally I'm not convinced that Langstaff will leave, we're not under any pressure to sell and plenty of quality strikers are available on a free in the summer, so clubs might be less willing to pay the transfer fee. But if he does, Scott, McGoldrick and Jatta are more than adequate at this level. The priorities definitely lie elsewhere.

I've been good this year and changed all the clocks already. Some years I just leave them - they'll be correct again in six months anyway

Plymouth Argyle 0-2 Bristol City (joker) Stoke City 2-0 Huddersfield Town Bristol Rovers 1-2 Shrewsbury Town Charlton Athletic 1-1 Stevenage Newport County 1-2 Crawley Town Sutton United 2-0 Swindon Town Altrincham 2-1 Oldham Athletic Eastleigh 1-1 Maidenhead United

Good Friday's results: Cardiff City 0-2 Sunderland Queens Park Rangers 2-1 Birmingham City Fleetwood Town 1-2 Cheltenham Town Lincoln City 1-0 Leyton Orient Gillingham 0-0 Crewe Alexandra Wrexham 2-0 Mansfield Town Solihull Moors 2-2 Barnet Woking 0-1 Eastleigh --- Congrats to Friday's winners @gtownjohnno and @william1984! @gtownjohnno, @william1984 - 8 @Dan - 7 @DonnyNotts, @magpiejue, @Megan_Elizax - 6 @Harry Buckley - 5 @ARLukomski, @Fan of Big Tone, @liampie, @super_ram - 4 @cheeky~k8, @Robbie - 3 @4everapie, @DangerousSausage - 2 --- Things are getting tighter at the top again... ARLukomski - 195 gtownjohnno - 192 william1984 - 183 Fan of Big Tone - 176 cheeky~k8 - 175 super_ram - 175 4everapie - 172 magpiejue - 172 DangerousSausage - 164 Dan - 160 Megan_Elizax - 149 DonnyNotts - 134 nottsnutter - 129 Chris - 123 liampie - 123 upthepies - 90 Joshua - 86 allardyces tash - 70 Robbie - 69 TheSkipper - 67 KingWilliams - 66 Harry Buckley - 59 CliftonMagpie - 55 thommo - 49 OoooooTommy - 45 NottsCountyKev - 41 JIMBO - 40 jimbob - 38 Nocturnal-Magpie - 38 AmericanPie - 36 KB1862 - 22 George L - 6 Canadian - 4 --- If you haven't already, pop over here to predict Easter Monday's games. Thanks for playing everyone!

Just a suggestion for @PON_News, we shouldn't be calling this outfit the Dons. Stolen identities shouldn't be acknowledged. Will we play three or four at the back? Which goalkeeper will win the toss this week? Even when we win a game, the pack is reshuffled for the next one. If you can't tell, I'm feeling a bit sick of it now. Football has a funny habit of surprising you when the in-form team meets the side that's bottom of the form table. We can only hope that Notts will pull off a surprise on Monday.

Will you resurrect your title hopes this round, or end up looking like a bit of an (April) fool? Predict these results and find out! Kick-off is at 3pm on Monday, and don't forget your joker! Plymouth Argyle v Bristol City Stoke City v Huddersfield Town Bristol Rovers v Shrewsbury Town Charlton Athletic v Stevenage Newport County v Crawley Town Sutton United v Swindon Town Altrincham v Oldham Athletic Eastleigh v Maidenhead United

What are you all up to over Easter? Are you spending with family and stuffing your faces with chocolate, or going out somewhere maybe? I'm starting a new job soon and handed in my notice this week, so I'm still full of nervous energy and need to settle down. I will mainly be spending the weekend on my sofa and might go to a small medieval market tomorrow, weather permitting!

The 2.2m likely refers to transfer fees over the season and not the wage bill. Those figures show that they spent 6 million pounds on wages last season (minus social security and pension costs); we don't know how much of that was spent on players, but we can assume the vast majority was. For context, in our last season in League Two we spent about 3 million on players' wages, which was the largest wage bill in the division. NL clubs' wage bills tend to be in six figures rather than seven. On the other hand, if they spent 66% of their turnover on wages, that's in line with FL recommendations and fairly healthy (as long as the merchandising money keeps rolling in). Looks like they won't be our problem next season anyway.

We owe Swindon one (or maybe several). We beat them earlier in the season when they were still unbeaten. I thought they looked a decent side, but they've fallen to pieces since and so have we. Prediction: abandoned after the Notts team coach gets lost on the magic roundabout; after a search party is sent out, a bewildered and starved Notts team is discovered a week later in Cornwall.

Here are my predictions. By the way, keep your eyes peeled for Easter Monday's round, which will go live after the final whistle today! Cardiff City 2-1 Sunderland Queens Park Rangers 2-0 Birmingham City Fleetwood Town 1-1 Cheltenham Town Lincoln City 3-1 Leyton Orient Gillingham 2-0 Crewe Alexandra Wrexham 2-2 Mansfield Town Solihull Moors 1-2 Barnet Woking 2-0 Eastleigh (joker)

As the first part of our big Easter bonanza, here's Good Friday's round. All fixtures kick off at 3pm, and remember your joker! Easter Monday's fixtures will go live immediately following this round. Cardiff City v Sunderland Queens Park Rangers v Birmingham City Fleetwood Town v Cheltenham Town Lincoln City v Leyton Orient Gillingham v Crewe Alexandra Wrexham v Mansfield Town Solihull Moors v Barnet Woking v Eastleigh